 Hi, I'm Sofda and welcome to a new precious plastic video. In this video I'll talk about fume safety when melting plastic. And I'll give some tips on how to be safer. Let's start with the most important lesson. Don't burn plastic. Burning plastic is really harmful to your health, to the people around you and the environment. It produces cancerous substances and causes respiratory problems. It also damages nervous system, internal organs, and the hormonal system. When you burn PVC, it can create some harmful gases called dioxins. Dioxins can cause cancer and affect the immune system and the reproductive system negatively. Only burn a small piece of plastic when identifying what kind of plastic it is, but do it with taking safety precautions such as wearing the mask and having the fume filtration system beside you. You can't burn plastic, but what you can do is you can melt plastic. But even when melting plastic, you have to take the safety precautions. Plastics are made up of large molecules and when they are melted, they create smaller molecules in the air as fumes. Those fumes are called volatile organic compounds. Those are dangerous. Immediate effects are severe irritation to the eyes, to the nose, and the lungs. Prolonged exposure to high amounts of fumes with no safety precautions will lead to cancer. Fume contents of common plastics were studied by Air and Waste Management Association and University of Tokyo and Chinese Academy of Sciences. They produced this graph. They studied six different plastics and as you can see, ABS and PS have five to seven times more fumes than other plastics. PVC and PA looks like they have a small amount of fumes, but actually they contain potent harmful substances, so it's dangerous for us to melt. So that leaves us the safest plastics, PE and PP. And the safest plastic of all is HDPE. We can melt PS, but in a limited amount of time. ABS and PS contain cyclic compounds in their structure and when they are melted, they also produce some cyclic compounds in the air. And these cyclic compounds are especially dangerous for human beings, so we have to protect ourselves extra carefully. Cyclic compounds can be easily filtered by activator carbon filters, but I will talk more about that later. For fume tests, we used PID detectors, which is short for photo ionization detector, and we detected with this device two centimeters from the source of the fumes, and it was 14 times higher than the recommended maximum. And we tested with melting PS, PE and PP plastics, and the result was that PS created five times more fumes than PE and PP, which means that PE and PP are low in cyclic compounds, which is most harmful to us. We also detected where the fumes are coming from in each of the precious plastic machines. And let me show you where it's coming from. So let's start with the injection. I will draw the fumes as the red fumes coming out. So for example, when the injector handle is up, fumes come out from the hopper, like this, and also from the nozzle when the mold is out. Let's go on to extrusion. The fumes come out from the hopper when it's not blocked by the plastic pellets, so from here, and also from the nozzle when the mold is out. Also fumes come out at the end of the mold. For example, when we're making beams, fumes come out from the end of the beam mold. For these precious plastic machines, we need movable fume extraction caddies. Fume extraction caddies are small devices where you can put beside your machines and extract the fumes. Now let's go on to the new machine, sheet press. Sheet press consists of hot press and a cold press. Most fumes come out from the hot press. If the temperature heating is even, then the fumes come out from all four sides. That's why we are building a hood on top of the hot press to extract the fumes. And the fumes come out from here, so that's why there's a hood on top of it. And let's go on to the cold press. The cold press, we found out that even though it's not heating, only pressing, still fumes come out for about six to seven minutes after melting them. Wash plastic well before melting. For example, residues from cleaning products can create harmful fumes. Never melt unseparated plastics because they have different melting points. And plastics that have lower melting points might burn faster than the other. When you're melting PS, you have to limit the time spent melting to eight hours a week. And when you're melting, you have to have a gas mask and a ventilation. Regular dust masks won't work. You need a activator carbon filter gas mask. Now I'm going to show you how to wear the mask. I'll take my glasses off first. Okay, and put the headpiece on and secure tightness like this. On the shortest amount, 14 times higher than the recommended maximum. So you have to keep away for two meters if there's no ventilation, like this. As we said before, in order to protect ourselves, we need a gas mask and a standalone fume filter to make the air clean again. Both the standalone filter and the gas mask use activator carbon as their filtration method. And activator carbon is literally a lifesaver. We chose activator carbon because it can be found everywhere around the world. And activator carbon is really good at filtering the cyclic compounds, which are the most harmful fumes coming out from the precious plastic machines. Fume compounds get glued on the surface and pores of the activator carbon. Activator carbon just means that it has been treated to have more pores than normal carbon. But there's a point when activator carbon cannot glue any more fumes. You can imagine it as a packed bus. It's full. And that's when you need to change the filter. The most harmful fumes, which are the cyclic compounds, are invisible to the eyes. But it can be smelled because the concentration is high enough to be smelled by humans. So if you want to know if the filter is still working, you can check the smell. And if it lets the smell through, then you need to change the filter. You can buy a granular activator carbon filter like this one over here. So when we melt plastic, the fumes come through here filtered by the activator carbon and goes through this mesh and through this dust filter. So this one over here has two kilograms of activator carbon and it will last you about a month if you're melting every day. But if you want the filter to last longer, then you need to buy a bigger filter. You need to store or place this filter in a dry area below 70% humidity and in an ambient temperature, which is lower than 80 degrees Celsius. You need also a centrifugal fan for the fume to be ventilated through this activator carbon filter. Now let's talk about the gas mask. You need a gas mask like this one over here. You need a gas mask because we need a double protection. Even though we have a filtration, it's not 100% efficient. Even in industry, they have not reached 100% clean air. So that's why we need a gas mask. The most widely used gas mask is 3M masks. You need to buy four things. The first thing you need to buy is a mouthpiece. And you need to buy a filter cartridge. And this one is for the dust filter holder. And this one is the dust filter. These filters can be used maximum of 50 hours. And then you need to change this filter cartridge. But you can use the mouthpiece and the filter holder again and again. Overall, the main point of this video was to let you guys know that P and PP are the safest plastics to melt. And for PS, you have to be extra careful because it has the highest amount of fumes. So you need to limit the time melting PS. You are safe. As long as you take the safety precautions, which are the gas mask and the standalone fume filter. That's it for this video. Make sure to check the download kit and see you in the next Precious Plastic video. Wait, wait, wait. Before you go, just want to let you know that Precious Plastic runs on the support of people just like you. Everything we publish is open source online for free so that everyone in the world can start tackling the plastic waste problem. If you'd like to support us, please go to support.preciousplastic.com where you can make a small donation or find out another way to help. Thanks a lot.